“If I—if we—need guards, who do we ask for?”
The man nodded slightly. “Arrendas or Torvan.” He waited for a moment, but the answer had satisfied her, and at length he left them entirely unescorted in the meeting rooms of the West Wing.
Only when the doors had once again closed did this motley group of youths relax. Ellerson waited, observing them. They were very poorly clothed, and the clothing itself followed neither current fashion trends nor the bare rudiments of good taste; the colors, for one thing, were horribly mismatched. But the clothing itself was in good repair, and it was clean, for a value of clean that belonged in the holdings. They all had shoes, or boots, as well.
The red-haired boy whistled loudly and the smaller girl began to move from the first room through the large arch into the second. She threw up her arms and shouted, “Look at us! Look at this!” She ran over to the west wall of the sitting room, and lifted—ah, a small magestone, often used for reading. It was framed in gold and brass, and it sat upon a side table. “If we took this with us, we’d have it made. This is worth a fortune!”
“Indeed it is,” Ellerson told her, for he felt this was the correct—or necessary—time to intervene.
She shrieked and dropped it, and everyone else jumped and turned.
He watched them, waiting for them to speak; they watched him, dumbfounded. This was, he thought, going to be interesting. It was perhaps not going to be easy.
“I am Ellerson. I am the keeper of these rooms; if you will permit me to ask you a few questions, I shall see that your needs are fulfilled while you reside within them. I am called the domicis.”
“Does everyone have to talk like that?” the redheaded boy muttered.
Ellerson chose not to hear the question, and was aware that for the first few weeks, he would have to cultivate very selective hearing. What he wondered, watching them now, was what they meant to The Terafin, and whether or not they would be worthy of her.
“Well,” their leader finally said, “we want food.”
“It has already been laid out, and is waiting for you in the dining room.”
“Great!” One of the taller boys, with hair that looked like a work of art, albeit one left out too long near the dusty road, said. “Just lead us there and let us at it.”
Ellerson pinched the bridge of his nose. “Follow me, sir.”
He led them, slowly, from the sitting rooms into the part of the wing that would be their personal quarters, wondering when it was that they’d last eaten. It did not, however, matter. It was best to begin as they were meant to continue.
He led them to the baths. “These are the towels. Soap is with the bath, in the silver dishes beside the scrubbing brushes. Those are pitchers and small basins, and there are two boys who will help you with your bathing needs.”
They all stared at the simple walls of the largely unfurnished room, at the light slanting in from high windows, which brought out the luster of the marble floor.
“But we’re hungry,” the boy with odd hair began.
His leader stepped, hard, on his foot. Not a bad sign, really.
“Of course, sir,” Ellerson replied, as if it weren’t in doubt. “And after the traditional bath, you will be seated in all haste. Unless you’d prefer the barbarian custom of coming to a table in your . . . current state.”
The auburn-haired girl shoved curls of hair out of her eyes. “Bath first,” she told her den.
“But, Jay—”
“Now.”
Torvan ATerafin led them to the healerie. Everything in the manse seemed to be so large, Carver thought walking from the kitchen to the dining room would take forever; his stomach reminded him that kitchen to dining room would be better.
The Terafin clearly liked light, and the galleries possessed large windows, some mosaics of multihued glass, and some as plain as open shutters. These, more than the paintings and the statues, caught his attention as they walked.
Torvan and the healer obviously found them unremarkable. Must be nice. But the long halls led, eventually, to shorter ones, although the ceilings still seemed tall and light. When Torvan reached a plain, closed door, he stopped.
“This,” he told Arann and Carver, “is as far as I go. If you need anything while you’re staying with Alowan, he’ll either send for it, or send for someone who will be able to help.” He started to speak, stopped himself, and glanced at Arann. “Your den leader is an interesting girl,” he said at last.
Carver nodded, because it seemed self-evident to him; Arann said nothing at all.
Torvan turned on his heel and vanished back the way he’d come, his boots making more noise against the floor than simple conversation in the hall would have. As if aware of this, Alowan waited until the steps had receded before he spoke.
“The Chosen seldom enter the healerie, except on stretchers,” Alowan said quietly. He opened the door, which appeared to be unlocked, and then stopped in its frame.
“Arann, Carver, you will note the large box on the wall to the right of the door. It is most of the reason the Chosen seldom visit.”
Arann looked at the box, but the glance was muted, almost uninterested. Carver looked because it was large, and about two feet off the ground. Not the normal adornment in a hallway, and certainly not halls as fine as the ones they’d passed on the way here.
“Leave your weapons in the box,” he told them both.
Arann had already removed his daggers. Carver stared at him, but his gaze seemed to pass either around or through Arann, because Arann didn’t respond.
“This is the healerie,” Alowan continued, “and it is my space. I will not have weapons beyond my door.” He waited.
Arann deposited his daggers in the box. The unlocked, unguarded box. Carver stared at him. And then stared at his own knives. If even the Chosen were supposed to strip themselves of weapons here, it was no damn wonder they didn’t visit often.
Arann lifted his hands, and signaled, It’s safe, in den-sign.
Carver wanted to ask him how he was certain, but didn’t, because the old man had watched Arann’s den-sign, and he clearly understood what it meant. Which was disturbing.
But Arann was almost never wrong. Grinding his teeth, Carver removed his daggers, lifted the simple wooden lid, and dropped them into the box. He felt naked.
Alowan, however, appeared entirely unconcerned. Carver had a suspicion that the old man would have waited all damn day beside the door, calmly barring his entrance. Now, however, as if capitulation had never been in doubt, the old man turned and and touched the door. “Welcome,” he said softly, “to my healerie.”
The door opened into sunlight and greenery as far as the eye could see—which, given the profusion of plants, was about as far as the fountain whose water trickled—from a grail, held by an arm that rose out of the water itself—into a small, shallow pool, girded by a solid, gray stone that was wide enough to sit on. Around that fountain, leaves of many different kinds trailed; some stood, as tall as his chest, single fronds that came to white points.
All of these plants were dappled by light that fell from windows—glass—in the round dome of the ceiling above. If it weren’t for the lack of breeze, Carver might have believed that the door he’d entered had been an exit. But there was no breeze, here; the plants only moved when they were touched.
He’d never cared much for plants—at least not the nonedible ones—but Alowan obviously did. The healer left them standing quietly in the door to tend them, or rather, to speak to them. Arann glanced at Carver, but Carver was, for the moment, speechless. The old man appeared to be apologizing for neglecting them.
Alowan paused, as if suddenly realizing he had visitors, shook his head and stopped his one-sided conversation. “My apologies,” he said quietly, this time not to the leaves.
They followed the old man into another room.
The room itself was, or seemed to be, round. The floors were tiled in what looked like marble, but it was a pale, smoky marb
le, with hints of jade. Trellises lined the walls at different heights, and pots of all sizes housed the plants whose creepers were entwined around them. They produced flowers, as well, white, pink, and a deep, deep purple. Carver sneezed as he passed them.
“Ah, Marla,” Alowan said.
A woman appeared from around the plants. “Alowan?” She was older than Carver and Arann, but not by much. Hazel eyes were narrowed in obvious concern. “Why did The Terafin summon you?”
“Marla,” Alowan replied, “we have guests. One visitor, and one patient. It is necessary, for the moment, that I leave the patient in your hands.”
Her eyes widened slightly, and then she nodded and turned. She looked at both of them—Arann and Carver—but Arann was still wearing the blood-splotched clothing.
“Come with me,” she told him gently.
He nodded, and allowed himself to be led from the round room into the room that lay beyond it. It was a good deal larger, and although plants also grew in pots around this room, they occupied only small tables.
“Wait outside a moment,” Marla told Carver.
But Arann shook his head. “He’s seen me in a lot less clothing.”
She nodded, letting the patient lead. She was brisk and efficient when it came to the removal of the pile of clothing, and he had a long, plain robe around his shoulders before he’d stepped out of his pants and his shoes. She held his tunic dubiously between two fingers. “I’m not sure this is worth laundering,” she said, although the words rose slightly as if it were a question.
“It can be cleaned and repaired; it wasn’t cut or torn,” Arann told her. He slid into the bed she indicated with a nod of her head.
“It might be washable, but it can’t magically be made larger. That’s the problem with mages—they so rarely do anything practical.”
“It’s all I have, at the moment.”
She looked as if she would like to argue further, but she didn’t. “Are you hungry at all?”
Arann shook his head, as if the defense of his clothing had sapped what little remained of his strength.
“No, you wouldn’t be,” she said, after a pause. Her whole expression softened, and her eyes were narrow again, the lines of brow folding in almost the exact same way they had when she’d first seen Alowan.
“I’d like a word or two with your friend, and then I’ll leave you both alone.” Her concern evaporated like summer rain when she glanced at Carver. “Follow, please.”
She led him back into the room with the fountain, and asked him to wait. He sat on the fountain’s edge and, after a little while, turned and began to trail his fingers across the surface of the falling water, adding ripples that clashed with the spill of water from the stone grail.
But he stopped when he heard steps across the marble, and when he turned and straightened, he faced Alowan, the healer.
He started to rise, but Alowan waved a hand, dismissing the possible politeness Carver was about to offer. “Don’t bow here,” Alowan told him quietly. “It makes me feel that I am not at home.” He paused, and then sat a third of the way around the fountain from Carver, staring not at the water, but at the foliage. It was both quiet and peaceful, and Carver glanced toward the room with the beds, where Arann now lay alone.
“What do you know about the healer-born?” Alowan asked.
Carver shrugged. “They’re expensive.”
This evoked a very wry smile. “Beyond that?”
He shrugged again. Alowan was healer-born, and even if Carver hadn’t known that for a fact, his clothing and his age made the difference in their relative stations clear. Carver had no desire to offend the old man; he just wasn’t completely certain what might cause offense in this strange place. Besides daggers. “They can heal anything, if they choose. Anything but death.”
Alowan nodded. “Anything but death. And yet they seldom choose to heal the dying.”
Carver stopped himself from shrugging for a third time. “Why?”
“Because to heal the dying, a healer must almost die himself. Or herself.”
Carver was silent, waiting. He knew how to wait.
But Alowan had patience and age on his side, and after a few minutes, Carver said, “Why?”
Alowan’s smile was slight, but it was surprisingly warm.
“Because they are almost across the bridge, the dying. Short of a healer’s intervention, nothing will prevent the crossing. Healers are not beloved of Mandaros for this reason,” he added, “and Mandaros is reputed to have stern words with them when they come, at last, to his Halls.”
This surprised Carver. Until this moment, it hadn’t occurred to him that anyone could dislike the healer-born.
“I get ahead of myself. We must approach the bridge across which the dead travel to reach the Halls of Mandaros, and we must call the dying back before they cross it. It is often a close-run thing.
“We must call the dying,” he added. “And we must hold them; we offer them the promise of life, and safety—and the safety, at least, is a lie. An illusion. What we touch when we are there is all that they are—or were. And what they see in us is similar. It exposes us; it reveals all strengths, but also all weaknesses.
“There is love, of a type, in that call. And need. And fear of its loss.” He glanced at Carver. “I am old. Arann is not. I have lost, and I have survived loss, in my time.”
“So has he.”
Alowan closed his eyes. “You speak of Lefty?”
Carver’s eyes widened.
“I told you,” the old man said gently, “that the healer must know the healed when they are called back from death’s edge. I know of Lefty, and I know what he meant to Arann. I know you, as well. You can’t cook, for instance.”
Carver’s grimace was brief.
“And I know Finch, Teller, Jester, Angel. I know your Jay. Jewel Markess. She is at an age where she dislikes her name.”
He had never really thought of Jay as young, before now.
“I know what she sees, when vision strikes her,” Alowan continued softly. “And I know what she’s done with that vision. She saved Arann’s life, the day they first met; she saved it again, later.”
Carver nodded.
“He came when I called, but only barely.” Alowan’s eyes closed. “I did not expect him to be what he was. I think I did not expect your entire den. I certainly did not expect its leader. I will speak with Arann in a few days.”
“Speak to him now, if you want.”
Alowan shook his head. “It would hurt him.”
“Why?”
“The distance is too great between us, who existed, for long moments in the lee of Mandaros’ Hall, as one. He desires to cling to that communion. And in truth, so do I. It is difficult. Death is to be avoided, and possibly to be feared—but there is peace there, Carver. It is hard to return to a life that has so little of it.
“The healer-born offer the dying some of that peace—possibly in order to tempt them. It is not deliberately malicious. It is just the nature of the healer. We heal. We defy death until death, at last, takes us.”
Alowan rose. “I will let you return to his side. Arann will not speak much, but I don’t believe he was ever one who did. Do not leave him alone more often than The Terafin’s service requires.”
“We’re not in her service,” Carver replied.
“No. Not yet. I forget myself.” He began to walk away, in the opposite direction from the room with the beds. But he paused. “She is a worthy lord, The Terafin. And Jewel Markess is a worthy den leader.
“I think you will find that there is a place for you in House Terafin, if, in the end, you desire it. Do not tell her that, if you feel it unwise. Jewel Markess is not a young woman who trusts either comfort or ease; she will earn her place here, or she will fail.
“But for my part, you are welcome in my healerie. Your daggers, as you are aware, are not. Bring Finch, bring Teller. I think I would like to meet them.”
“Now?”
&n
bsp; “I forget myself. Not now, not yet. But in a day or two.”
“I’m not sure where we’ll be in a day or two.”
“I, however, am certain where Arann will be. The Terafin is powerful, and she is wealthy. I think it unlikely that she will return you to the streets before I judge your den-kin capable of surviving in them. You will be within the Terafin manse for at least as long as Arann is.” He turned again. “I am weary, and I, too, must seek what peace can be gathered in a place that offers death and violence to the young as casually as the sun rises at dawn.”
He hesitated, as if he would say more, and then he shook his head and left Carver beside the fountain.
Arann didn’t speak much. And while it was true that he wasn’t chatty—which, given the rest of the den, was probably a good thing—this silence was leaden, heavy, almost painful. Carver tried to break it, because Carver was not by nature as quiet or reticent as Arann. But it was hard to shoulder a conversation entirely on one’s own, and in the end, even Carver fell into uncharacteristic silence.
He did not, however, leave. He stood once, to stretch his legs, and Arann watched, his silence unbroken, his expression so openly desolate, it was a shock.
He was therefore seated, in that uncomfortable silence, when Jay came to the healerie. The healerie was so quiet and so lulling, she managed to knock Carver off his chair by simply touching his shoulder; he hadn’t even heard her approach.
She came without daggers, and she looked tired and stretched, her face pinched by an anxiety that abated only when she saw that Arann was alive. As if the healing might have been a dream, or the part of nightmare that gives hope before it crushes it entirely, she stood at the edge of the bed, gathering her thoughts.
“It’s fine. Everything’s all right,” she told Carver, taking the seat that he’d tumbled from. “There’s someone outside the door for you. Tell him you’re part of my den; he’ll take you to where there’s food. More food than a den full of Angels could eat.”
They’d been hungry, these past few weeks; not starving, because they made enough in the streets to survive—but never full. Never full enough. He crossed his arms over his chest, however, and shook his head. “I’ll wait.” He nodded to Arann.
City of Night Page 49
